Broward County Already A Winner in 2011 World Series

Ladies and gentleman, your 2011 World Series Champion is… Broward County!

Even before the 2011 Major League Baseball championship gets under way this evening, Broward County is already assured that one of its own will be crowned a World Series champion when it is all said and done.

This reality has been made possible based on the fact that each of the two teams in this year’s World Series feature a player from this area. For the National League’s St. Louis Cardinals, a team which is playing in the finals after perhaps the most improbable playoff run one could ever imagine, it will be former St. Thomas Aquinas star Tyler Greene representing the county. While across the diamond on the American League’s Texas Rangers, there is former Flanagan slugger Mike Napoli.

“This is just an example of what a great area this is for baseball, for all sports really,” said St. Thomas Aquinas coach Robert Lawson, who coached Greene his final two years of high school. “This has always been a great area for baseball. You can win in this area.”

Whenever a local player finds success in sports, it is a positive reflection on the place where they are from and the culture they were raised in. So to have two players achieve entrance into the grandest stage of the game of baseball is a great tribute to the area that produced these stars.

“You couldn’t ask for anything better,” said Kyle Dailey, Napoli’s former Flanagan coach. “It’s a great motivator for other players in Broward; it shows them it can be done. When you have that one example it really motivates them.”

Coach Lawson admits that he too uses Greene as an example to point out to his current players, serving as a reminder of what can be achieved.

“I take no credit for Tyler’s success; he is a super young man who worked his butt off,” Lawson said. “It was an honor and a privilege to coach him. When you see your kids being successful, and they come back and thank you, you do know that you are doing something right.”

Lawson points out that this area produces great human beings in all walks of life, be it athletes or lawyers or doctors or business owners. But it is still very special to see these two players achieving this great opportunity. In today’s sports world it is even more rewarding to see these player’s reach this pinnacle moment in their careers while maintaining a high level of class and reverence while doing so. Both Napoli and Greene are known across the MLB landscape as classy, humble and inspirational players.

“You couldn’t ask for better,” said Dailey. “Mike is a great representative for Flanagan, for Broward, and just for baseball. You never hear anything negative about him on the field or outside the game. I always think he’s a kid, but he’s a veteran in Major League Baseball.”

For Greene, even making the playoffs with the Cardinals was something that was totally inconceivable even as recently as a few weeks ago, when the team trailed the Atlanta Braves by more than 10 games for the wild card spot with the regular season nearly over. Yet the Cardinals showed the same fortitude that Greene displayed his whole life just to reach the pros, and now the third-year player will experience something that every kid dreams of at some point during their childhood.

“Our whole coaching staff is proud of Tyler. He is very humble and comes from a great family,” Lawson said. “Back in high school he had a great work ethic and a lot of talent. He had a great career at St. Thomas and it was always his dream to play in the major leagues. Whatever he set his mind to, he was going to be great at it.”

For Napoli, this has already been a dream season in his first year with the Rangers after playing his first five seasons in Anaheim with the Angels under Coach Mike Scioscia. He has put up career numbers offensively despite the fact that he has not been in the starting lineup all the time. He has played three positions this season, designated hitter, first baseman and catcher, while providing Texas with a clutch hitter capable of swinging a big bat.

“I don’t know what he would do if they gave him a couple hundred more at-bats,” said Dailey, who admits he has sacrificed many hours of sleep this season in order to stay up and watch Napoli play with his West Coast team. “He doesn’t show a lot of emotion usually, but it really struck me what he’s done when I saw his face after that last pitch [in the ALCS]. That was the moment that he had worked his whole life for and I could see it in his face.”

Really the only negative part of this whole ride is that both of these players cannot be champions. There can be only one winner, and unfortunately for one of these players the thrill of being there and being a part of it will have to suffice. But that does very little to sour the fact that both these players have reached their dream, that they have proven to every starry-eyed child playing in ballparks across Broward County that hard work and dedication can pay off.

“Someday people are going to come to Broward County, and they will say ‘This is the same field that Mike Napoli and Tyler Greene played on’,” said Dailey. “This is something that has not been said about this area, and it is truly amazing.”

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